


The Nature of Inviting

by lezzerlee



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Apologies, Challenge Response, Community: ae_match, Developing Relationship, Fights, M/M, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lezzerlee/pseuds/lezzerlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur finds Eames in a dream after a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nature of Inviting

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this video.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N74206Uepek)
> 
> Thank you so much to [climb](http://climb.livejournal.com%20target=), [canyousayhot](http://canyousayhot.livejournal.com%20target=), [gelbwax](http://gelbwax.livejournal.com%20target=), and [night_reveals](http://night_reveals.livejournal.com%20target=) for beta-ing!

__  
To your recklessness and pleasure,  
I purely commit,  
Cause everything that you are,  
is everything that is.  
Survive the golden dreams you try to escape from,  
but you surrender to the power,  
to the only way.  


_I love you, I hate you,  
But that's the nature of inviting._

-IAMX

  
_Arthur_  
_____

 _The snow is falling up_ , he thinks as he walks through the ever-changing landscape. As soon as he's finished the thought, rain comes falling down. The melted flurries pour from the sky to splatter his suit with thick drops, darkening the dove gray fabric to charcoal. The dream is beautiful, all glowing lights and blurred outlines, dark yet ethereal at the same time.

He hasn't walked through Eames' mind in a very long time. He's forgotten the transient nature of it when not on a job, always shifting, changing, revealing and taking away the details of a well-traveled life. Cities dissolve into countryside, dissolve into abstraction.

He would usually enjoy a journey through Eames' subconscious, the way it says so much, if one knows how to read it. Even if someone doesn’t know how to read the subtleties of each structure, of each object, it’s easy to simply enjoy its beauty. Arthur could get lost just watching the firefly-like particles build and collapse in stunning formations. But he's not here for that.

He's here because it's been five days since since they fought. It has, pathetically, taken him five days to track Eames down, and the man hasn't even left the city. It frustrates him that Eames is so good at running away, at not being found, not unless he wants you to find him.

Arthur is the best, but Eames is sometimes better.

When Arthur finally found him, hooked up to a PASIV, alone in a cheap motel, he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t stand by for the timer to run out. He couldn’t stay in the mold-filled room, sitting on the scratchy comforter watching Eames escape into his own dreams.

The city disintegrates around him, flying apart in motion-blurred lines. He sees Eames standing at the very center of the sprawling darkness, back turned and smoke from a cigarette wafting above his head. Eames doesn’t smoke in the waking world, not anymore, and Arthur is taken with the sight. There’s something about a man with a cigarette that makes something stir in Arthur, ignites his lust like the burning embers of the Djarum in Eames’ hand. The sweet, spicy scent of the burning tobacco fills the air around them.

Arthur clears his throat nervously. Eames turns, raising his scarred eyebrow skeptically. Arthur wonders why Eames keeps the little details like that—the scars, the imperfections—when he's so talented at controlling his appearance in dreams. He thinks he may never know.

Eames doesn't move, but he drops his cigarette on the ground. The impact electrifies a wave of light across the floor of the dream and the smoke turns into dandelion seeds, breaking apart and filling the air with a soft, organic cloud.

Arthur approaches slowly, not wanting to push too fast. Eames lets him get close, close enough to touch, and Arthur reaches out to caress his face, but pauses before his fingers brush along Eames' jaw. He's waiting for permission. If it's not enough time, if it's not the right time, he'll wait. He always does. If he has to, he'll give Eames space.

But Eames doesn't flinch away, doesn't stop him, so he cups Eames' face in his hand, rubbing his thumb along the crest of his cheekbone. Eames’ cool, gray-blue eyes search his own. There’s a fear there that Arthur hates seeing. It’s unconfident, apprehensive, and it’s everything that Eames isn’t; Eames who knows himself better than anyone has the right to. Eames, who knows others better than they know themselves.

"I'm sorry," Arthur says softly. Eames' eyes flutter shut, a breathy sigh escaping his full lips. He looks defeated, which causes a pang of guilt to shoot through Arthur's chest. He hates that he’s the one to evoke these emotions.

"Why do we do this, Arthur?" Eames asks. The question is broken, tinged with a sadness that Arthur isn't used to hearing. They fight—spectacularly—but they recover just as well. This is different. Arthur’s heart shatters inside his chest, shards of guilt, of regret pumping through his veins.

 _Because I love you_ , Arthur tries, unable to manage the words. They get choked off in in throat before he can speak them aloud.

Instead he leans in to press a soft kiss to Eames' mouth, tasting the nicotine on Eames’ lips. Eames deepens the kiss, pulling Arthur in like he thinks Arthur will disappear, escape like sand through clenched fists. It's desperate and heated, and frightening. Every ounce of Eames' fears are suffocating Arthur as Eames devours his mouth, sucking his breath away.

The dream sparks with life again, particles gathering into blotches of light that circle around them like floating lanterns. The soft light playing over the planes of Eames’ face. The hollows of his cheeks deepen as the highlights of his nose and cheeks become brighter. Arthur thinks he looks like an angel, or a god—something untouchable because of its perfection.

"I don't think I can do this forever," Eames whispers when he finally pulls away from their kiss. Arthur doesn't know if he can do this either. He wants to give Eames everything, but he has nothing to offer. Eames deserves so much more, but Arthur is too selfish to let him go. He smiles sadly, drawing Eames’ hand into his own and rubs soothing circles across Eames' calloused palm.

"I don't need forever," he says. It may not be a lie.

He thinks that maybe he just needs whatever Eames will allow him to take. That his life is complete now and even if Eames were to leave him tomorrow, he would still have these memories, the time they spent together. They stay until the timer runs out, letting the world shift into beautiful shapes around them.

 

art by [paperstains](http://paperstains.livejournal.com)

______

  
  
_I worship intoxication,_  
I took all the pain,  
It's an appetite that you find that you throw away.  


_Survive the golden dreams you try to escape from,_  
but you surrender to the power,  
to the only way. 

_I love you, I hate you,  
But that's the nature of inviting._

\- IAMX

Eames  
______

The air shifts in a way that he has no control over, becoming chilled. Wind sweeps through his structures, breaking them apart, reorganizing them as the pieces collide together anew. It’s how he knows, the first indication. He can always feel the moment when Arthur enters his dreams.

Very few things affect him like this. Jumping across the gap of building rooftops while losing a tail does. A really well sung interpretation of _Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix_ , or the opening titles of _Star Wars_ , give him that little lurch in his stomach and the raised hair across his body that comes with chills.

And Arthur.

The ripple works its way through the landscape, disrupting the gentle rise and fall of his mind’s creation. It’s like his entire subconscious gravitates towards the man and then pushes away, a wave breaking over rocks then returned back to sea only to be swept in again.

Arthur is just that, a disruption in the flow of Eames’ life.

Eames is not a man with many attachments. His profession, _his nature_ , doesn’t allow it. But somehow Arthur had woven himself so thoroughly into Eames’ life that Eames can’t escape him. He doesn’t want to. He’s like a fly caught in a spider’s web, waiting for something large and fierce to claim him, but unable to untangle himself from the trap.

He never thought he would fall like this, never thought these types of emotions could ever reach him. Eames had always seen them as a weakness, something to observe, dissect, and tuck away for use later. He always thought of them as just another way to manipulate others into doing what he wanted.

But now he can’t seem to make himself run from them. He can’t seem to make himself ignore the way every fight makes him feel like the world is ending, or that his heart is being wrenched from his body. How every moment away makes him want to run back, and every moment together makes him want to flee.

He knew that Arthur would eventually show up. Eames could disappear forever, if he wanted to, but something stops him from doing just that. Something stops him from slipping away, losing himself in the underworld, in a life of risks and no second chances, but where he has control and where he makes his own luck. Something stops him from leaving and never turning back.

Some of the most passionate relationships end in the most spectacularly horrible fashion. It’s the volatility of the emotions, that make it this way, he knows. He feels like their relationship reflects this perfectly. He and Arthur are like a two white dwarf stars, circling each other until they collide, bursting forth a supernova explosion.

He doesn’t know if he can sustain this, if their light will outshine the threat of darkness in the future. It’s inevitable, in his mind, that one day this will end. It frightens him to think of what his life would be like without Arthur. Not just what they have now, but everything they had before: the job, the cons, the dreams. Everything they do, every argument they have, every fight feels like they’re heading towards disaster.

But maybe that’s just him. He’d like to consider himself hopeful—he is when it comes to others—but he has a pessimistic view of his own life. It’s kept him safe over the years. It’s protected him from getting too invested, from getting in to deep. It’s what has allowed him the ability to change course at the drop of pin, to leave everything behind to protect himself.

That’s possibly what frightens him the most. However easily he could run away, he finds that he doesn’t really want to. Not from Arthur.

Eames takes a long, satisfying drag of his cigarette, the spice playing over his tongue as the cool smoke settles in his lungs. It’s a comfort he only enjoys in dreams, now. His world shifts around him as he thinks. His city is dissipating into blurred lines when Arthur clears his throat from behind him.

Eames is expecting him, but he raises an eyebrow in the illusion of annoyance anyway. He drops his cigarette to the ground, letting it explode into a cloud of soft, feathery seeds. Arthur approaches, tentative, nervous in a way that Arthur never is, and reaches out. He doesn’t quite touch though, like he’s waiting for Eames to turn away. Eames doesn’t. He can’t.

When Arthur’s fingers brush over his skin, he shivers and his subconscious shivers with him, kicking up new particles to form around them. He can feel their connection through Arthur’s fingers. It’s not just the touch but the warmth, everything it could ever mean, everything Eames’ heart truly wants and wishes he could believe is possible.

He hates feeling so helpless to his desires.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur whispers. Eames lets his eyes close at the words. This would be so much easier if Arthur didn’t apologize, if Arthur didn’t seem to feel just as awful as Eames does when they clash. It would be so much easier if Arthur let him go instead of chasing him.

But he doesn’t want that, not really.

“Why do we do this?” he asks. What he means is _why do I do this_. Why does he allow himself to get too close? Why did he allow himself to fall in love?

Arthur doesn’t say anything, though it looks like he wants to. Instead Arthur leans in for a kiss, lips brushing against Eames’ own hesitantly. It’s not enough. Eames knows anything less than _everything_ won’t be enough.

He pulls Arthur to him, seeking the farthest depths of Arthur’s mouth, as if he can breathe Arthur in though the kiss. He feels something inside himself wake as he devours Arthur. The glowing dust of his mind solidifies as Arthur’s tongue dances across his own. Shapes, globules of light, dancing around them highlight Arthur’s face.

He looks so young in this soft light, almost delicate like Arthur never is. Eames thinks he could break Arthur so easily. Or that Arthur could break him. But he’s willing to take that risk, to ignore his fear of what the future may hold.

“I don’t think I can do this forever,” he admits when they break from their kiss. He doesn’t know if he can give Arthur the life he deserves. He doesn’t know if he can promise a future together.

“I don’t need forever,” Arthur whispers back. Eames wonders if that’s true, but is unwilling to ask. He knows he will never be able to walk away.

 

art by [essouffle](http://essouffle.livejournal.com)


End file.
